


Crack Gong Show: Meta Edition

by MermaidMayonnaise



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Comedy, I actually wrote this for band and performed it with my section, It's a gong show, M/M, Self-referential to the point of incomprehensibility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/MermaidMayonnaise
Summary: “I wonder where the rest of the group is,” Jeremy says as he scrolls through his phone lazily.Neither of them knows or particularly cares. “Oh, well.”Suddenly, Michael does that loud gasp thing where he slammed down his phone and jumped up from his chair.“SHIT! WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THINKING OF SOMETHING FOR THE GONG SHOW FOR BAND!”“WHAT?!” Jeremy yelled, jumping up with him. “That’s still happening?”-----A Gong Show is a show composed of self-written skits put on by sections of the band.Jeremy and Michael lose a bet and have to write one, which goes about as well as one would expect. Good thing that meta is still in.





	Crack Gong Show: Meta Edition

**Author's Note:**

> It should be obvious as you read it, but the story is from the audience's viewpoint of the Boyfs' skit.
> 
> I totally forgot to put in that this was my actual conversation between me and @LuckyKaos when we were panicking over what to write for the skit. Oops. Still luv ya, Swan.

Jeremy and Michael are sitting down next to each other at one of their school lunch tables . It’s a lazy Thursday afternoon, and they were feigning being bored, but in reality they were just scrolling on whatever social media they were currently into and enjoying the other's company. You know, typical teenage bonding time.

Except the ‘lunch table’ is actually a table that they dragged onstage and pushed haphazardly onto the center of Middleborough High’s auditorium. The lights are off and a spotlight shines on the group, who all have their scripts laying in clear view.

Jeremy is dicking around on his school issued Chromebook while trying to write his AP Lit essay and Michael is on his phone, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was scrolling through fanart on Tumblr like some teenage fangirl. There is a comfortable silence between them, punctuated periodically by Jeremy’s frustrated typing and Michael squeaking quietly over his OTP.

Eventually, Michael looks up. “Aren’t we supposed to be doing something right now?”

“I don't think so,” Jeremy mumbles, pausing his typing to think. “Isn’t this just lunch?”

“I wonder where the rest of the group is.” The rest of the group in question is literally sitting next to them, quietly talking amongst themselves.

“Oh, well.” Neither of them knows or particularly cares. A few minutes pass, their section’s blabbering a constant chatter in the background.

Suddenly, Michael does that loud gasp thing where he slammed down his phone and jumped up from his chair.

“SHIT! WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THINKING OF SOMETHING FOR THE GONG SHOW FOR BAND!”

“WHAT?!” Jeremy yelled, jumping up with him. “That’s _still_ happening?”

At this point, the Reader may be asking, Hang on, what is a gong show? Patience is a virtue, dear Reader.

“The saxes were talking about it in the group chat!” Michael groaned, smacking his head with his hand. “This is what we get for you being a piano player and me a bassist! We don’t interact with them!”

“Which chat?” Jeremy furrows his brow. “We have, like, five.” This was true. There was one damn saxophone that never wrote anything and kept getting automatically removed from the group. This was always followed by someone making a new group chat and adding that person back in.

The first chat was dubbed ‘The Saxes + Boyf riends’ because Jeremy and Michael’s graffitied backpacks are somewhat of a joke in their grade. It didn’t help that in senior year they finally got their heads out of their asses, realized their mutual attraction for each other, and were now actually boyfriends.

The chat names dissolved in coherency from then on. Some memorable ones were ‘The REAL gc’, ‘gdi pls respond idiot’, and 'ill never let go jack.'

“Oh, my God. I think it’s mandatory,” Jeremy says, his face white. “We lost that dumb bet to the saxes and now we have to write it. The show is tonight and we _forgot_! Shit!”

“Oh, yeah,” Michael says, chortling, “the bet was totally worth it, though.”

Jeremy fixes him with a withering look. “Well, do you have an idea for the show?”

“No…” Michael trails off. “I thought you did.” He pauses fearfully. “You do, right?”

“Actually, yes,” Jeremy said cheerfully, and at some point they both sit back down, electronics forgotten. “Maybe we could do one of those skits were they try to find an idea for the skit itself? Y’now, the meta kind?”

“Oh, God. Only if we were desperate.” Michael shudders, then looks at the audience, saying, “Maybe we could do a show that casually breaks the fourth wall?”

“Nah, that’s cheesy,” Jeremy brushes him off. “Sorry, audience. What about making fun of the music instructors? It’s a classic.”

“That’s kinda mean,” Michael chuckles, “but anywho, only the flutes and the trumpets can do it.”

“Oh, yeah. The flute section is already well liked by the instructors and--”

“Trumpets have the confidence and the ego to pull it off!” Jeremy and Michael both shout together and high-five.

“You know, they say that stereotypes aren’t real, but I disagree,” Jeremy confides.

“Yeah,” Michael agrees, “but we still can’t do that skit. We don’t want the underclassmen to get any ideas.”

“Speaking of ideas, anything yet?”

“No.” Michael pauses. “What about burning our instruments onstage like the clarinet instructor suggested?”

“You mean _your_ instruments,” Jeremy says pointedly.

“ _Our_ instruments.”

Jeremy lets the silence stretch out for a second, because dissing the piano is not acceptable in his book. “Okay, anyway, I’m having vivid flashbacks of the saxes, back when they were an actual section without a bassist and guitarist tagging along with them, pieing the conductor in the face.”

“The seniors requested that,” Michael corrects him. “We just kinda went along with it.” He was friends with the saxes, due to him being in the jazz band before Jeremy even gathered the courage to go public with his piano playing.

“We’re not doing that again. Or anything involving food.”

Michael laughs in relief. “Hell no, we aren’t. That year was terrible.”

They ponder for a moment then Michael screams, “Hey, ‘saxophone section!’” He put finger quotes around ‘saxophone section.’

Their tablemates, used to both Michael’s antics and volume, look up. “Hey, what?”

Instead of answering them, Jeremy, who has been looking at the script and reading along, says, “Michael, why did you write “all the small children look up” in the script?”

“At least I didn’t write small as ‘smol’, okay?” Michael defends himself indignantly. “This isn’t Tumblr.”

Their tablemates, composed of Rich Goranski, Jenna Rolan, and three other insignificant saxophone players, continue to ignore them.

“This script is kinda boring,” Jeremy says. “Will they gong us?” (When someone is gonged, then that means that their skit is over and they are in effect booed off the stage.) “I wrote something after this dissing our middle school if they don’t, but to be honest I’d rather not because it’s kinda dumb.”

“The stage direction literally says, ‘THEY WAIT. IF NO GONG: Continue.’ Who even wrote this?” Michael inquired.

Jeremy sighed. “We did, Michael. We wrote this dumb skit two hours before the actual Gong Show because... procrastination. Anyway. Moment of truth.”

They look at Mr. Reyes, who had abandoned his standing position next to the gong and was sitting in the auditorium seats along with the rest and the teachers and band students. A beat.

“Well,” Jeremy gulped, looking at his script, “since for some reason they haven’t gonged us yet, I was thinking. Instead of writing a skit, I was going to write a rap.” The audience sat up in their chairs and looked at him, suddenly intrigued.

“That’s dumb. It’s stupid,” Michael told him, and the audience wilted. “I hate it. Why--”

“Too bad I didn’t think of it earlier instead of two periods before,” Jeremy says, easily ignoring Michael, whose insults trail away upon being ignored. “Okay, whatever, Michael, shit up. Rich, Jenna? Three other extras who I’m not going to name?” Jeremy turns around to acknowledge the other saxophones for the first time. “Any ideas?”

Jenna and Rich shake their heads. “No.”

“What about screaming “Live from Middleborough Middle School, it’s Thursday Night Live?” Jeremy pondered. “It could be a throwback to funnier times.”

One of the extras, who was a freshman, speaks up. “I just graduated from the middle school, let’s forget about it, please.”

“I get that,” one extra adds timidly. “Also, the rest of us don’t like public speaking, so thanks for not giving us many lines.”

“No problem,” Jeremy told her.

Michael looks down at his own script. “If you do actual finger guns at her like it says in the stage directions, I will walk off the stage.”

Jeremy turns his back on him, flippantly saying, “Bye, then.” He finger guns at the extra, who did the gesture back enthusiastically. Michael discretely gives him the finger, because this is still a play they wrote for school and they have to keep it PG.

“I’m still at the middle school,” the third extra says, finally speaking up.

“This poor child…” Jenna says from next to him sympathetically, patting her on the back. “I’m sorry.”

A chorus of agreement comes from around the lunch table. Rich reaches over to pat the extra on the back, but since he’s muscular he pats him a little too hard, and the poor middle schooler’s back buckles slightly.

Jeremy turns to face the audience resignedly. “Well, usually when writing comedic scenes I like to end with a funny kicker line. But seeing that neither of us, the ‘neither’ being me and Michael, have any ideas and everyone else is being uncreative, unhelpful, or just too focused on their phones--” he shoots a look at Jenna, “I guess this’ll have to do.”

Looking at the audience, Michael deadpanned, “Live from Middleborough Middle School, it’s Thursday Night Live!” He looks at Jeremy angrily, having not read the script all the way through and feeling legitimately betrayed. “Why? Why would you make me say this?”

The whole makeshift cast looks at Jeremy. There’s an awkward pause.

“That’s it,” says Jeremy, clapping his hands to dust them off. “That’s the entire script. It’s as far as I got. Good night, folks.”

Jenna starts to walk offstage, flipping her hair. “I was supposed to say ‘Is no one going to tell him that it’s Friday?’ as we were walking offstage, but seeing that’s it’s a dumb decision I’ve elected to ignore it.”

“Bye!” Rich and Michael yell in unison before throwing their scripts in the air and running off. Everyone else waves and meanders offstage as well, dragging the chairs behind them, accompanied by the screeching noise that accompanies them doing so. Jeremy stood on stage alone, his awkwardness carefully rehearsed. Just kidding- it came naturally, but this time it was thought out beforehand.

The gong finally, _finally_ reverberated, echoing around the auditorium. Next to the actual gong and holding the mallet weakly, Mr. Reyes stares after them, slightly concerned for his sanity and that of his students'. But just slightly. These are high schoolers, after all.

The combination of teenage boredom, procrastination, and online activity is a dangerous thing. Good thing the Gong Show only rolls around once per year.

**Author's Note:**

> When I performed a simpler version of this live, only a few people laughed. Validate me. The boyfs would want you to.
> 
> Comments make my day, and kudos make the world go round.


End file.
